Acidic natural gases represent about 50% of the remaining gas reserves in the world and the specifications relating to the sulphur content of these gases are more and more serious. The purification of gaseous mixtures, and in particular of hydrocarbon gaseous mixtures such as natural gas, which consists primarily of methane, or of synthesis gas, in order to remove contaminants and impurities from them is a common operation in industry. These impurities and contaminants are in particular the “acidic gases” such as for example carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S); sulphur-containing compounds other than hydrogen sulphide (H2S) such as for example carbonyl sulphide (COS) and the mercaptans (R—SH, where R is an alkyl group); water, and certain hydrocarbons.
Generally, a solvent has its own advantages and disadvantages as to features such as loading capacity, kinetics, regeneration energy, selectivity, stability, corrosively, and so on. This disclosure is directed to an improved solvent with unexpected properties.